Night Cap
by MercuryinRetrograde
Summary: Snape and Hooch have a drunken talk about (failed) relationships, one thing leads to another... light hearted fun with slash and het implications.


Madame Hooch watched Professor Snape help himself to his sixth cup of Hagrid's surprise fruity punch–the surprise being it had no unfermented fruit juices in it at all–and walk a careful heel-toe to his shadowed corner half hidden by the staff room chest. There he lost control and half tumbled into his arm-chair. Hooch shook her head. Damn git. Who did he think he was fooling? 

She sidled over, squeezing through the crowd of reveling Hogwart's staff, past a tipsy Dumbledore leading a tipsier Minerva thru an increasingly intimate two-step. Hooch narrowed her hurting eyes, finding the chemical bright wet-fizzy sticks and flashes of metallic streamer both irritating and garish. She preferred open night skies, soft downs rolling beneath her like waves. The never-ending whisper of the wind, drawing her on and on and on… She shook her head and refocused her considerable concentration back on her target. 

"Snape!" Hooch landed on an overstuffed arm, perching over him with a smile.

"Hooch." Snape groaned, twisting his fingers against his forehead. "I'm… busy." 

"Ah!" Madam Hooch replied sagely, patting him on the shoulders. "Well then I won't keep you long." She eyed Dumbledore, who held a tittering Minerva to his deep purple velvet dress robes and whispered sweet nothings in her ear. "It looks like you're taking Lupin's departure well." 

Snape's face tightened like a draw string purse. "What of it?" 

Hooch laughed. "I don't think I've ever seen you so taken with someone."

"I never once expressed anything but justifiable concern over his position as a Hogwarts—"

"Bull hocky!" 

The end of year staff revelry held the very hour all Hogwart's students had finally left the castle for the summer was always boisterous, always colorful, always the scene of some dramatic staff-room romance blow ups. This year's great romance hadn't ended in a spectacular year-end fight, rather with a fizzle. Lupin leaving late the previous night under the cover of dark and Snape coming out of his dungeon only to drink himself into a solitary stupor. He still insisted his tumultuous relationship with Remus was platonic and professional. 

"Madame!" Snape rose imperiously. Or would have were his robes in less disarray and his movements less shaky. "I don't believe I need tolerate this… this assassination upon my character." He pitched forward, but caught himself on a bookcase. "I have never… fraternized with any Hogwart's staff!" His drink sloshed over the wall, the hardwood floor, the chair as he gestured, punctuating his shouted words. 

Professor Sprout and Treelawnee half turned from their huddled tetè tet by the brownies, staring at Snape's outburst. Mrs. Noris' luminescent green eyes narrowed with reproach. Filch snorted. Flitwick's small hands were pressed to his mouth. Dumbledore and Minerva, having retired from their dance to a loveseat by the window, continued to snog without pause. Hagrid took a half step closer, extending one meaty, shovel sized hand as if to help.

Snape fell back against the other armrest. He looked non-pulsed then molded his features into a haughty mask, tilting his chin and offering a sour smile.

"Come on." Hooch caught his shoulders. "You've had enough. Any more and you'll be unconscious and I don't fancy carrying you." 

"Damn woman!" He pulled out of Hooch's grip. "I can walk!" He took a step and fell to his knees. 

"Tch, tch… stop struggling." Hooch helped him up and held his shoulders in quidditch strong arms. "I'll take you to your dungeons." 

At the mention of his lair Snape grew still. Hooch maneuvered him through the hushed crowd without further incident. She nodded her good-byes and ducked through the door.

The cool hall air eased Hooch's thumping head. She sighed with relief. Although a hearty woman, she did not enjoy parties as much as her fellows. The sounds, smells, sights all combined to an over-stimulating miasma of sensory chaos. And Minerva and Dumbledore acting like… that hadn't helped. She'd needed a reason to duck out early and Snape had provided. Although she _was_ concerned. His behavior had been positively… un-Snapelike. 

Snape tripped, falling heavily on her side. She staggered a bit under his weight–he was quite heavy despite his thin appearance–then straightened herself and him. "Right?" She asked, patting his chest.

He nodded. 

"All right then." 

It was a long, silent walk. Hooch thought of Lupin and Minerva and Dumbledore–'please call me Albus.' Then flying and teaching quidditch occupied her thoughts. It took a time for certain… quivery thoughts to work their way to consciousness. They centered around the insufferable lump on her shoulder and how… warm it was. Very warm in fact. Like a furnace. Hooch glanced over. Snape looked half unconscious, his movements were jerky, his face ashen and slick. And he was warm. Hooch blinked. She'd always suspected he'd feel like a dungeon draught­–chill and smelling of dank things that creep in stone cracks. But… he smelled of warm beeswax and sandalwood. 

Must be a brew on the boil, Hooch reasoned, snapping her attention back to the hall. The door just on the end led to the spiral stair down and Snape's dungeon. 

The door itself turned out to be a bit of a hassle. Hooch had to pin Snape between herself and the wall while wrenching the door open and thrusting the Potions master in. Snape stumbled a bit but managed to catch himself. He waited for her to roll through–she was feeling the effects of her two mugs–and join him. 

Hooch gave him a glare, wondering if he was enjoying this. Or if this was one of his dark and deeply laid plans. 

Snorting at her own paranoia, she shook the cobwebs off her thoughts and took his arm. 

Going down turned out to be quite easy. All she had to do was keep him from going too fast. And then, finally, they arrived at his door. 

"Well, here we are!" Hooch hitched her fists on her hips and fixed Snape with a determined look. 

"Thank you, Madame." Snape spat some black hair from his lips, his head rolled up against the wall and his shoulder hard against it to stand. "Now, if you'll excuse me–"

Snape tried to draw his wand from his pocket but the motion made him topple. He fell backwards and to the side. Only Hooch's quick foot work kept him from a nasty head wound. 

"Better help you in." Hooch said to the top of Snape's head. She'd caught him in a chest lock, his arms stuck at one and nine from his shoulders, his heavy robes bunched around his ears, and his legs straight out before him; his shiny spats glinting in the torchlight. 

Snape grunted and waved his wand at the door. It swung open with a click. 

Hooch paused on the threshold, her eyes searching the dark. Faced with the prospect of exploring Snape's inner sanctum she felt a creeping sense of… curiosity. What bright eyed, slippery limbed things might she find in here? 

She gripped Snape's lapels and, with a push from her knee, wrenched him more or less up. 

He seemed to regain himself some and lumbered, hunch backed into the dark. A muffled 'luminous' set the lights on. They were dim and tinged a deep ochre. Hooch followed him in, her quick eyes jumping from a wooden work bench beneath jars of twitching, chittering specimens, to the bath sized cauldron nestled in burnt out embers, to a wicker basket in the shadows. Beady eyes flashed in the basket, she heard a skitter. Hooch swooped down on it, peering in. 

A ferret. A pitch black ferret. 

"Why Severus! I never thought you kept pets!" Hooch fiddled with the latch, her nails scraping against the wicker. It gave and she darted her hand inside. 

"Of course I don't keep pets!" Snape snapped from his easy chair by the hearth, his anger reviving him. "Ferret fur is a vital ingredient in flexius salve."

Hooch brought the ferret out–her hands supporting his sleek black flanks and slinky chest– and clucked at him. He was fat, glossy and unconcerned. Hooch rubbed his ears and he licked his chops. "What do you feed him?" 

"Chicken." 

"Excellent. May I have a piece?" 

"I fed him before I left. I don't want him getting fat." Snape poured himself a glass of scotch. 

Hooch eyed the pear-shaped weasel. "Severus, if he was any fatter he'd be a quaffle." 

Snape glared at her. "Are you still here? Shouldn't you be somewhere else?" 

Hooch grinned and nestled the ferret in the crook of her arm. "What's his name?"

"Slithen." Snape rubbed his eyes. 

"Slithen!" Hooch guffawed, slapping her knee. "Brilliant!" She brought the ferret up to her face. "Aren't you smashing, Slithen." 

Snape grimaced and sipped his scotch. 

"I wouldn't mind a spot." Hooch said pointedly. Snape glanced at his scotch bottle, then at Hooch and scowled. But he still leaned over and fetched a glass from his side table. 

Hooch helped herself and sat down on his claw footed loveseat by the hearth. The upholstery pattern was paisley black on black, she noticed, and the wood an old and deeply auburn ironwood. Snape liked fine, if ominous, things. Hooch smirked. 

Snape's face curdled. "Why did you help me, Hooch?"

"It was getting stuffy." Hooch took a drink. "And I'd had enough of watching Minerva and Dumbledore act like love sick fourth years." 

"So it wasn't a nightmare induced by drink…" Snape groaned and slumped lower in his chair. 

"That Minerva certainly cats about." Hooch tucked into the scotch. She didn't even attempt to hide her bitterness. If there was one person she could trust with it, it was Snape. He was well versed in its ins and outs and whyfors. 

"Is that a note of reproach I detect?" Snape tapped his long fingers. 

Hooch shook her head, her drink half hiding a smile. At least here she could express disgust over Hogwart's deputy headmistress without hearing soliloquies about her fairness, the compassion behind the crotchety goat's exterior, etc. etc. She might even get a good rant about Dumbledore in. 

"She's such an old biddy." Hooch tickled Slithen's belly. 

"Seemed to play the slattern tonight." 

"That's what's left of your sulphurous tongue, Snape?" Hooch admonished, grinning as she brought her glass up for a cheer.

"I could call her a hypocritical old tart whose wits are about as loose as her twat, but that wouldn't be properly civil." He'd turned the phrase 'properly civil' with a prim Scottish accent, even managing Macgonagall's squeaky "c's". 

Hooch snorted, sending scotch burning up her nose. She coughed and pounded her chest.

"'Why, Severus! You're as bad as a child! Behave yourself!'" Snape continued, pouring himself some more scotch. "'Behave! Or Dumbledore will have to strap you!'" 

"Oh, that's quite the image Severus."

"Enough to turn you off your kippers? That lecherous old fart leering over my pale bottom?" 

Hooch made a sound somewhere between "Gwuaf" and "Ugh" and doubled over her knees laughing. "I can't believe I ever fancied her." 

"Ah. So the real story comes out." Snape leaned closer. "I'm all ears."

"And quite a bit of nose!" Hooch teased. 

"All the better to sniff out secrets."

"All right, all right. I've been keen on her all year. At winter break I… told her I fancied her. And she said, 'Hooch, dear, what would the students think? Two Hogwarts teachers… you and I… It's improper!'" 

"Doesn't stop her and Dumbledore." 

"She could have just said she wasn't interested!" Hooch flung her arms wide, dislodging Slithen who tumbled into her lap and lay where he fell. "I would have understood. But to hide behind that tired excuse…"

"Even more tired then you'd imagine." Snape cautioned. "Her and Treelawnee used to be quite an expressive item in the seventies." 

Hooch sank into a morose moment of self pity. Slithen rolled over in her lap, presenting a comforting belly. She couldn't bring herself to tickle it. "Love is an ugly thing." 

"I'll drink to that." Snape offered. 

They drained their glasses. The scotch shot to Hooch's head, making her feel in flight. "Good stuff." She plunked her glass down. "What was behind the staff room scene today, Severus?" 

He finished pouring another glass, a bit dribbled over the edge. He caught it on his index finger and brought it to his lips. "No one but you cares about myself and Lupin, Madame Hooch. They'd sooner think I was at his throat due to professional jealousy." 

"You've sobered up." 

"I put a temporalis cunctor tablet in my last glass of punch. I wanted to be able to walk back, but you beat me too it."

"What happened? You've always been a drunk Severus, but that scene in the staff room…" 

"Ah Madame. Love is indeed ugly. Ugly as a newly unfurled skewrt, ugly as pickled mugwup testicles, ugly as boubletoubus pus…"

"Stop pontificating, Snape."

"Right. It's quite simple. Lupin and I shagged. And he promptly left for Sirus. I imagine the allure of passionate alley-way trysts doggie-style overwhelmed him." 

"I'm sorry, Severus."

Snape waved her apology away. "No need, Madame Hooch. I've long accustomed myself to the vagarities fate affords someone of my disposition. And now I must beg your pardon for I am about to get very drunk. The temporalis cunctor has worn off." 

Hooch rolled Slithen onto her arm and stood. "Well then," She watched the hawkish profile with fondness. She hurried over to the weasel's cage and plunked him down, fastening it and crouching down to wave a small ado. Standing, she turned back to Snape's chair. His head was lolling against the upholstery and a glistening line of drool snaked down his chin. 

"You great git." She grimaced. "You're going to wake up with a crick." 

Chancing his ire, she sauntered closer. He looked about as comfortable as a rickety Comet. She steeled her shoulders and gave her neck a stretch. "I put Slithen to bed, and so you'll go too." With a groan she hauled his chest over her back by the arms and hefted him up. When all of him dangled inches above the floor her knees began to tremble. Mentally she re-estimated his weight up four stone. "Right. Worst of it done. Let's go!" Shaking step after shaking step she got to his bedroom threshold. There she paused and took a deep breath. She was more than tipsy now and a bit headachy, but she was determined and the king-sized four poster canapé bed was her goal. 

Five more steps. Four. Three. Two. One… there! The bloody heavy body of Snape rolled over her shoulder and lay unfurled on the bed. She stood back and glanced around his room. She took in the brushed metal fixtures shaped like serpents, the heavy teak chest of drawers, vanity and bedside tables, the gold clawed tub peeking from behind the bathroom door, the suffusion of deep earth tones and glossy woods. And then the heavy satin drapes in the exact­–exact–color of ruby over Snape's bed. "Aren't we a poof!" She grinned and surveyed Snape, still in his stiff robes and spats. With a chuckle she decided to help him out of them. She tackled the spats first, unlacing and tossing them in a corner, trying not to gag at the mulched stinkweed smell oozing off Snape's black hosed feet. "Good Lord! Don't you change your socks?" She moved onto his mantel, unclasping the silver serpent broach and tugging his robes off. His stiff waistcoat and black dress shirt followed. 

This was too good. Hooch laughed and stepped back. Snape lay against his dark red woolen comforter in a black undershirt and slacks. The weight finally had an explanation. Divested of the billowing robes that made him seem a stick wrapped in a turban Snape was, well, not buff, but bigger then Hooch had thought. His chest was slender but his shoulders were broad, his muscles wiry and–Hooch raised an appraising eyebrow–one might imagine him with a seeker's build before he grew too tall. 

"I suppose any more and you'll be furious at me tomorrow. So I'll leave you be." She pulled a crocheted quilt from the chest at the bed's foot and laid it over the Potion Master. She watched him, one hand held against a post. He wasn't half bad to look at. Big in the nose, but he had a nice jaw to balance it. 

"It strikes me that you are being quite kind tonight, Xiomara." 

Hooch jolted, "It's no more than I'd do for any other–"

"Really?" 

Hooch, recovered somewhat from the shock of hearing Snape's sonorous baritone, felt a flash of anger. "Were you awake the whole time?"

"Do you imagine I would slobber on myself if I was?" Snape wiped his mouth and pulled himself up a bit. "It seems my temporalis cunctor mix is flawed." He fixed Hooch with one black eye. "I did hear the poof remark." He fell back and lay, face up, eyes closed.

"Well, Goodnight, again Snape." Hooch snapped and turned to leave. "And this time it better be for good." 

"I hope not." 

Hooch stopped and looked back. 

"Would you like to stay the night, Madame Hooch?" 

She gripped the door jam. "What are you saying, Severus?" 

"I'm in no state at present to entertain, but I imagine I can make up for my failing tomorrow."

Hooch felt like she had to sit down. "Snape…" 

"Yes?" 

Her lips and tongue were dry. She felt somewhat gooey inside at the thought. But Hooch was nothing if not brave. And this… this was certainly interesting. "All right." 

"Excellent."

They sat in silence. 

"Now what?" Hooch asked and was answered with a loud snore. "Oh." She wondered if Snape would remember what he had asked the next morning. She wondered if she **should** take him up on his offer. She glanced over, eyeing his rather handsome jaw and neck. "Oh, talleyho." 

On her way to the other side of the bed she stripped off Snape's socks and brought out her wand. "Incindio!" they burst into green flame and a wrinkle of turquoise ash. "I'm not sleeping with a man who smells of boiled cabbage." She snarked as she pulled her robes off and stepped out of her boots. 

Wearing just her gray undershirt and boxers–she still was a dashing butch, after all–she slipped under the covers and lay, stiff and contained on her side, until the final bit of question dissolved away. It only took a moment to settle into the crook of Snape's arm, her head pillowed against his chest, feeling the full effect of his furnace-like heat.

Well, now. She listened to his heart–yes, he had a heart– and imagined what his… entertainment might consist of. Hooch had a strong stomach and a strong sense of adventure. She'd always thought Snape attractive in a haughty, caddish type of way. And this was certainly more fun than going back to her cold bed to pine over Minerva. 


End file.
